This is something I realized just now, and it's another flaw in HED's argument. He's basing his whole 101, 102, 103, 104, etc, on certain rights specified in the Declaration of Independence, and his argument depends on other people accepting that he has those rights. But on who's authority do those rights exist? Thomas Jefferson and the other authors certainly don't have the authority to declare that those rights exist if HED is correct. More to the point, those rights are illusory; they can be violated at any time and for any reason. There's no magical forcefield that protects someone from having their life taken away, no magical lockpick that allows them to retain their liberty, and so on. Meaning, those aren't actually rights, unless you accept the authority of Thomas Jefferson et al to establish that they are.

It's more than a little bit ridiculous for him to claim that nobody has any authority over him when he's accepting the authority of someone else to declare that he has certain rights in the first place. So which is it, HED? Did Thomas Jefferson and the other writers of the Declaration have the authority to declare that those rights exist, or didn't they?

101. Admit or Deny that you were not born my king, my superior, nor my sovereign, you were not born with a higher rank than I.

102. Admit or Deny that therefore, you DO NOT have authority to command me by your mere birth.

103. Admit or Deny that if this is true for you, it is true for every other human being born on the planet.

104. Admit or Deny that if no one has a rank higher than mine, then no one has authority to command me.

Birth rank does not equal rank. HAE is pulling a type of equivocation here.

Logged

An Omnipowerful God needed to sacrifice himself to himself (but only for a long weekend) in order to avert his own wrath against his own creations who he made in a manner knowing that they weren't going to live up to his standards.

You're still focused on rank. Why? By now you know how stupid that is, so why keep with it?

He's rather adamant about his conclusions.

I dare say religiously so.

Logged

"When we landed on the moon, that was the point where god should have come up and said 'hello'. Because if you invent some creatures, put them on the blue one and they make it to the grey one, you f**king turn up and say 'well done'."

You want someone never to have authority over you: kill yourself. At least we wouldn't have to read your incessant whining all the time.

When you joined this website you allowed the website to have authority over you by agreeing to the terms of the website. Granted that's voluntary but so is staying where you live. You don't like it there because stop signs, red lights, etc., have authority over you than either move to a place where no one but you could live in, or kill yourself: those are your only two options. Attempting to impose your beliefs hasn't worked here and won't work anywhere else.

-Nam

Your failure to address point 104 is noted. Your failure to Admit or Deny with proof that if no one has a rank higher than mine, then no one has authority to command me is noted.

You're still focused on rank. Why? By now you know how stupid that is, so why keep with it?

He's rather adamant about his conclusions.

I dare say religiously so.

I agree. He's got his conclusions and real world facts be damned.

Logged

An Omnipowerful God needed to sacrifice himself to himself (but only for a long weekend) in order to avert his own wrath against his own creations who he made in a manner knowing that they weren't going to live up to his standards.

I'm glad you're finally admitting that birth rank is not the only way in which someone can have authority over someone else.

Quote from: Habenae Est Dominatus

Uh huh.

I'll just take notice of your word weaseling for now.

You mean like your attempts to try to weasel your way past the idea that someone might have authority over you by fixating on birth rank? You've never actually established that nobody has authority over you; you've just established that they don't have authority via nonexistent birth rank. Granted, I was using a semantic argument here; I thought it might get your attention at least, since most of your previous responses consisted of little more than belligerent repetitions of your "birth rank" logic.

Quote from: Habenae Est Dominatus

At some point, the legitimacy or illegitimacy of such command will have to be addressed.

Legitimacy is a non-issue. A bastard is an illegitimate child (a child born out of wedlock); does that mean they're not a child? Does that mean they didn't inherit certain things from their parents (genetics, if nothing else)? Legitimacy is very often just a way to deny the reality of something that actually exists.

Quote from: Habenae Est Dominatus

Which is how "government"... Any "government" commands. Comply or die. Habenae Est Dominatus.

I have already observed how many in this thread refuse to acknowledge that the gun under the table is what backs every "law" legitimate or illegitimate.

You're making a big issue of the "gun under the table". What I don't think you realize is that the threat of force underlies the rights declared in the Declaration of Independence as well. If someone threatens your right to live, you have to back it up with force, which may include taking away their life to prevent them from taking yours. If someone threatens your right to liberty, you have to back it up with force. And so on.

I think you would agree that the mere fact that the threat of force backs up authority does not itself determine whether that authority is legitimate or illegitimate. What matters is how that authority was obtained and to was uses it was put. For example, the federal government's authority is based on the consent of the governed. Note that voting isn't what establishes consent; voting is a privilege that one can choose to exercise or not exercise at their discretion. Consent is established by being or becoming a citizen, and you withdraw it by ceasing to be a citizen. However, the authority vested in the government doesn't just extend to the persons who consent to it; it also extends to the territory they claim as their own. Otherwise the federal government could do nothing to an alien who entered this country illegally, nor could the states, counties, cities, or other local governments. Not even individuals could; who are they to make that decision?

What that means is that even if you renounced your citizenship, you would still be accountable to the government (which is speaking for its citizens) and its laws as long as you stayed within territory it governs; otherwise illegal aliens could not be arrested for breaking laws here. This is the same principle as a visitor to (as opposed to a resident of) territory you claim as your own having to be accountable to you and your rules. If someone who was a visitor, or even a former resident, decided to start using part of your property without your permission, I doubt you would just blithely let them do so without consequence.

Quote from: Habenae Est Dominatus

Since you have actually conceded that there is no birth rank, and that there can be no authority based upon this nonexistent birth rank, it followsdoes not follow that since you and every other member of this group have no authority over me, You, or any other member of this group, can not give consent for me to be governed. Only I can do that. And you can only consent for yourself to be governed.

Corrected it for you. You have not established that I and every other member of this group have no authority over you. You have only established that authority cannot be based on birth rank. The former does not follow from the latter and therefore your logic is invalid. Before you continue this discussion, you really should correct that mistake, because it's very annoying having to keep pointing this out to you.

Leaving that aside, you have consented to be governed by remaining a citizen. If you no longer consent, you need only renounce your citizenship.

Quote from: Habenae Est Dominatus

You can NOT consent for me. You can ONLY consent for yourself. So such ability to command ONLY applies to yourself.

Incorrect. If you come onto my property, I can certainly command you to leave, and throw you out on you ear if you refuse. So yes, I can have the ability to command someone else under certain circumstances, even if you don't consent to it. That means that the government, based on the consent of a group of people, can also possess the authority to give commands to others under certain circumstances, even people who didn't consent to its governance.

Quote from: Habenae Est Dominatus

Correct. "to all of those people" who have consented FOR THEMSELVES.

Just as you can NOT consent for me, neither can they.

It's also valid for the place where those people live. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to tell someone to get off of my property and throw them out if they didn't comply, or to expect them to follow certain rules in exchange for being allowed to stay there. A group of people who establish a city have the same right - to establish rules for residents and visitors alike, and punishments for those who don't comply with those rules. If you don't like their rules, you don't have to go there. If you go there anyway, you can't break their rules and then complain about how you never consented to their rules when they come to punish you for it. You consented simply by going there, whether you were aware of the rules or not.

Quote from: Habenae Est Dominatus

That would be 'and thus is valid to all who voted.'

And again, Just as you can NOT consent for me, neither can they. And since I don't vote, I do not agree to abide by the results.

Again: No authority to command me.

To reiterate, when I own property, I have the right to set rules regarding that property. If you don't comply with those rules, I have the right to force you to in order to protect my ownership of that property, and to punish you if your non-compliance caused me trouble (for example, a person comes into a restaurant and orders food but can't pay; the restaurant can certainly require them to work off the money they owe by washing dishes or something). A government established by the consent of a group of people has the same right to set rules regarding the territory those people claim as their to govern, the same right to force compliance with those rules, and the same right to punish troublesome non-compliance.

Quote from: Habenae Est Dominatus

Larken Rose says it best:

Why should I care about Larken Rose's opinion in the first place? You haven't even established who he is, let alone why anyone should bother listening to him. After all, he doesn't have any authority over me or anyone else here.

To give you an example for why his argument fails, let me ask you a question. If you were to find someone on your property, taking things you own without your permission, would you listen if he told you that he hadn't agreed that you own those things? Or would you threaten him with force in order to retain ownership of your property? I am quite certain that your answer will be the latter one, which means that Larken Rose's argument is specious. The fact is that the other guy doesn't have to agree that you own those things in order for you to actually own them; you don't have to come to some "mutual agreement" where he 'consents' to your ownership for you to actually have that ownership.

That's just one example of how badly his argument fails. As another example, in no way does he establish that implied consent is a myth. He simply declares that it is with no evidence. It's an argument from authority, except that he's no authority on the subject, which makes it into a fallacy. Yet another way in which his argument fails is declaring that a person who was born in a country doesn't agree to anything. You've stated that you voted in the past; in order to register to vote, you had to affirm that you were a citizen. By itself, that's more than enough to demolish his argument.

Quote from: Habenae Est Dominatus

What, specifically and factually do you mean by "town"?

Anything that has a municipal charter and thus a municipal corporation governing it. Note that a municipal charter always defines a specific territory that is thus governed, though the boundaries of that territory may be modified periodically.

Quote from: Habenae Est Dominatus

I have not given him authority to speak for me. You can not give him authority to speak for me. So if by "town" you actually mean all the inhabitants therein, you are in error.

I mean the area defined by the geographical boundaries in the municipal charter. Since you did not live there before the charter was established, you cannot move there later on, purchase land, and thereby abrogate the town's authority over that land. Indeed, the deed of ownership for the land would be based on the town's authority under the municipal charter. All deeds of ownership in this country are based on the authority of the jurisdiction within which they fall (generally, city or county, although there are some cases where state or federal land is sold).

Quote from: Habenae Est Dominatus

If by "town" you mean the corporate entity (that would be the incorporated town), he can certainly speak for that, since he is an officer of the same. However, we are back to the same lack of authority discussed all along.

As I just stated, I mean the area defined by the geographical boundaries in the municipal charter. Since his authority covers that, you cannot abrogate it after the fact merely by moving there and purchasing land, since you would have to go through the offices of the town in order to have purchased the land.

Quote from: Habenae Est Dominatus

I think you are beginning to understand the concept.

Oh, I haven't had any trouble understanding what you're trying to say. I just don't agree with it, and you have not done a very good job of convincing me to change my mind, or of demonstrating that you've thought it through fully.

Quote from: Habenae Est Dominatus

However, you don't need to use a person from somewhere else in your scenario. Let's use me as a person living in that town.

So, yes. The mayor doesn't speak for me. (I didn't vote for him to speak for me.) I didn't give the mayor consent to govern me. (I didn't vote for him to govern me.) I didn't give the mayor authority over me. (I didn't vote to give the mayor any authority because I didn't vote for him at all.)

Therefore the mayor has NO authority over me. With no authority over me I DON'T have to pay attention to the mayor's proclamations.

It is irrelevant whether you voted for the mayor or not, or even if you chose not to vote. The act of voting is not itself consent to be governed. Voting is a privilege extended to citizens which allows them as a group to choose who they want to represent them. It is citizenship that gives consent to be governed.

If you live within the town, and thus within its jurisdiction, you don't get to claim that because you didn't vote, you didn't consent to being governed by whoever ended up getting elected. That's specious reasoning which is based on the false idea that voting for a candidate represents consent to be governed by that candidate alone, and thus you don't consent to anyone else governing you instead - meaning that if you don't vote you didn't consent to anyone's governance. The reason it's false is that it totally disregards the tried tested concept of popular sovereignty and attempts to replace it with a poorly thought out alternative called individual sovereignty, and it also ignores the fact that voting is a privilege that one can choose to exercise or not, rather than consent to be governed.

Quote from: Habenae Est Dominatus

Is your crystal ball that good? You can look into it and know what I would or would not do? I'm calling you on your fearmongering. This is related to the "we've always done it this way" argument as well as an appeal to consequences.

You of all people have no business complaining about fearmongering with your criticism of the government's "gun under the table". And in any case, I'm not fearmongering. I'm stating that we have no way to predict what a given individual might do once they've declared that they aren't held accountable to any authority but their own. It's all well and good to talk about people governing themselves, but most people are not very good at doing that without some kind of external framework.

Quote from: Habenae Est Dominatus

What is missing is your proof of authority.

Funny, I was about to ask you the same question. Where's your authority to do whatever you want in this town? Where's your authority to ignore the fact that this mayor was elected by a majority of the people who voted in that election, and thus to ignore whatever laws he puts in place? Because that's what you're effectively claiming - that you have the right to do what you please, and if someone else dislikes it, screw them. Even if you, personally, are responsible in the choices you make, that is no guarantee that everyone would be. In fact, considering the sheer number of things that people do which harm other people in some way, that's a pretty strong indication that a sizable number of people wouldn't be responsible towards others in the choices they make.

That's why we have governments, laws, and all those other things that make up the external framework I mentioned. They're ways to get people to be responsible towards each other - and yes, that does sometimes involve forcing them to be, or else. I'm not willing to throw that all by the wayside to try out your idealized system, because idealized systems just don't seem to work very well in the real world. The tendency of things to go wrong tends to screw anything up that doesn't have a way to cope with it, and I haven't seen any indication that your idea can cope with things going wrong.

Quote from: Habenae Est Dominatus

So the mayor's authority is the authority of the people of the town...?

How did the people of the town get authority over me, that they could then give to the mayor?

It's the authority of the people of the town over the territory claimed by the town. Unless your specific claim to a piece of that territory predates the formation of the town, the only way you could have acquired it is through the offices of the town. If you buy a piece of land, for example, you might notice that the deed is not in your name, it's in the name of the previous owner. You have to go to whatever office the town has that deals with real estate and get a new notarized deed printed in your name for it to be legal. They have to check to make sure you actually did go through that transaction where you bought the land instead of just sneaking onto their property and stealing the deed, if nothing else.

But let's say that your property is actually outside the town; you aren't a resident, but you go there to buy and sell things. In that case, you're a visitor, and are obligated to abide by the laws the townspeople have set over that territory (such as paying sales tax, having a permit to sell stuff, etc) while you're there. It's the same way that you have the right to set rules for visitors to your own property. If they break those rules, I highly doubt you'll accept them saying that you don't have the authority to do anything to them, and it's the same thing with a town.

Quote from: Habenae Est Dominatus

You can elect anybody you want to speak for you. You can NOT elect anybody to speak for me.You can elect anybody you want to tell you what to do. You can NOT elect anybody to tell me what to do.

So I assume you have no objections to Mexicans coming north to do as they please, to ignore all the laws passed by every jurisdiction in favor of what they think should be done instead. You see, that's what happens when you act like individuals are equally sovereign instead of the people (as a whole) being sovereign. You are basically saying that everyone has the right to do what they think is best; they don't have to care about what you think is best. And if what they think is best happens to screw you over, well, sucks to be you.

Quote from: Habenae Est Dominatus

Make shit up much?

The sovereignty is equal.

No, it is not; there is no such thing as equal sovereignty. If I invite you onto my property, you do not have any sovereignty there to make decisions regarding it, because it isn't yours. And you have no sovereignty to resist me ejecting you from my property, with force if necessary, for the same reason.

The people who reside in a town are sovereign over that town as a whole. You, being a single resident of that town, have no individual sovereignty to exert over any part of that town; it isn't shared equally between the town's residents (and non-residents), it resides within the people as a whole. The town doesn't belong to you, it belongs to the people who reside there, and the mayor, being the elected representative of those people, has the authority to make decisions about the town, given him by the people who reside there. That includes your residence and property, if it happens to be inside the town, because the fact that you happen to reside there or even own it gives you no special rights to ignore the sovereignty of the people as a whole over the town as a whole.

In my lurking, I read a post wherein a biblethumper had the suggestion given to him that he do a formal debate because of the shear numbers of others. I wonder if the biblethumper was given more respect than I.

In case you're wondering, it's because you're being pretty abrasive in the way you're acting. Many theists are at least reasonably polite to start with.

No, I'm not wondering.

I am challenging the superstitious, religious belief in "authority". What I see is that some of the atheists are acting just like the theists when their beliefs in the deities are challenged with logic. Too bad those atheists can not see this any better than the theists can.

Your whole argument rests on the idea that nobody has authority over you, but you only established one particular way in which they did not have authority over you. That means, at the very best, your argument is incomplete.

I'll agree to that statement for the sake of this discussion. The trails all end at the same point though.

Quote from: Habenae Est Dominatus

You convey that 'Authority is based upon the consent of the governed, taken as a group.'

The fact that a group is a collection of individuals is irrelevant in this case. It's the fact that those people, collectively, agreed to give a specific entity the authority to govern a specific geographical area

1. Only I can consent for me. Therefore you can not consent for me. 2. Only I can consent for me. Therefore none of the other individuals in the group can consent for me.3. In order for a group to collectively consent for me, Some member of the group must be one who can consent for me.

You are ASSERTING that a group of individuals can magically consent for me.

As long as they have the ability to enforce that authority, that's all that's required.

This is the Might makes right argument. Are you really going to argue that Might makes right is a valid path to authority?

Quote from: Habenae Est Dominatus

Since you have actually conceded that there is no birth rank, and that there can be no authority based upon this nonexistent birth rank, it follows that since you and every other member of this group have no authority over me, You, or any other member of this group, can not give consent for me to be governed. Only I can do that. And you can only consent for yourself to be governed.

Someone can still gain authority over you even if you didn't, personally, consent to their authority. You've stated that you own property. Owning property means that you have the right to make decisions about that property, which includes the right to decide if other people have the right to enter it or stay there. In short, you're claiming the authority to make decisions regarding that land. If someone came onto your property, they wouldn't have the right to do whatever they wanted there, because it isn't their land. You would have every right to expect them to abide by your rules or suffer the consequences. Because they came onto your land, you have authority over what they do while they're there.

Or do you think that someone who enters this country illegally has the right to do as they want?

Irrelevant to the issue of State (lack of provable) authority.

The fact that the immigrants do enter illegally (which is a case of them doing what they want) and then the immigrants take jobs they are not legally allowed to take (which is again a case of them doing what they want), just proves that this authority you believe in doesn't control those persons.

Because that's ultimately where your argument leads. According to your chain of reasoning, Mexicans have the right to enter this country as they desire, and do as they like while they live here, because nobody has the authority to stop them.

As I was saying, the Mexicans are doing this in spite of your religious belief in authority.

Quote

Illegal_immigration_to_the_United_States#Number_of_illegal_immigrantsWikiIn 2013, a DHS report estimating the size of the illegal immigrant population living in the U.S. said, "In summary, an estimated 11.4 million unauthorized immigrants were living in the United States in January 2012 compared to 11.5 million in January 2011. These results suggest little to no change in the unauthorized immigrant population from 2011 to 2012."

If the only person who has authority over an individual is that individual, and there's no way for anyone else to gain authority over them without their direct, explicit consent, then who's gonna stop them?

They're not being stopped now, in spite of your belief that authority exists.

Thus, because YOU are afraid of what MIGHT happen, I'm supposed to magically believe contrary to this simple logic:

1. Only I can consent for me. Therefore you can not consent for me. 2. Only I can consent for me. Therefore none of the other individuals in the group can consent for me.3. In order for a group to collectively consent for me, Some member of the group must be one who can consent for me.

You are ASSERTING that a group of individuals can magically consent for me.

And I will keep posting this ad nauseum until you find a logical way to deny those three points.

If you're going to claim that you can live in this country without abiding by the laws decided on by the representatives of the people, then you open the door to anyone else who wants to live in this country without abiding by those laws.

Any person who represents another is called an agent. The person being represented is called the principal. The agent is required to obey the principal's wishes. Your wish is that there is to be no law X and you voted for person A to keep the law X bill from becoming law. Person B won the election and is now the elected representative. Person B voted to make the law X bill into law which is exactly opposite of what you wanted your representative, your agent, to do for you. Person B does not represent you. Only a delusional person would claim Person B represents them.

I don't vote because I refuse to validate the delusion that I am "represented" by a lying politician.

You also open a bunch of other doors that I'm pretty sure you'd prefer to remain shut - for example, how do you argue that you have the authority to make decisions about the specific plot of land where you live when other people can presumably just ignore it, since you don't have authority over them?

Thus, because YOU are afraid of what MIGHT happen, I'm supposed to magically believe contrary to this simple logic:

1. Only I can consent for me. Therefore you can not consent for me. 2. Only I can consent for me. Therefore none of the other individuals in the group can consent for me.3. In order for a group to collectively consent for me, Some member of the group must be one who can consent for me.

You are ASSERTING that a group of individuals can magically consent for me.

And I will keep posting this ad nauseum until you find a logical way to deny those three points.

Quote from: Habenae Est Dominatus

How's that work when nobody holding those tokens has authority over me?

So, I take it you don't mind the idea of tens of millions of Mexicans coming and living here in this country, and doing as they please? You see, they didn't "consent to be governed"; they aren't citizens.

Thus, because YOU are afraid of what MIGHT happen, I'm supposed to magically believe contrary to this simple logic:

1. Only I can consent for me. Therefore you can not consent for me. 2. Only I can consent for me. Therefore none of the other individuals in the group can consent for me.3. In order for a group to collectively consent for me, Some member of the group must be one who can consent for me.

You are ASSERTING that a group of individuals can magically consent for me.

And I will keep posting this ad nauseum until you find a logical way to deny those three points.

Yet the government's authority doesn't just lie over the individuals who consented to be governed by it, it also lies over the geographical area that makes up this country.

Larken Rose says it best:

Quote

To tell someone that his only valid choices are either to leave the "country" or to abide by whatever commands the politicians issue, logically implies that everything in the "country" is the property of the politicians. If a person can spend year after year paying for his home, or even building it himself, and his choices are still to either obey the politicians or get out, that means that his house and the time and effort he invested in the house are the property of the politicians. And for one person's time and effort to rightfully belong to another is the definition of slavery. That is exactly what the "implied consent" theory means: that every "country" is a huge slave plantation, and that everything and everyone there is the property of the politicians. And, of course, the master does not need the consent of his slave.

That's why the government can take action regarding Mexicans here illegally, including deporting them back to Mexico and taking steps to keep Mexicans from crossing over in the first place. That also means that people like yourself fall under the umbrella of that authority.

Whoa there Nelly. You still have not proven authority exists in a logical manner. The best you've come up with is Might makes right.

1. Only I can consent for me. Therefore you can not consent for me. 2. Only I can consent for me. Therefore none of the other individuals in the group can consent for me.3. In order for a group to collectively consent for me, Some member of the group must be one who can consent for me.

As long as you're a citizen, you consent to be governed (even if you say you don't want to be, because that's just you exercising your freedom of speech).

Larken Rose says it best:

Quote

The claim is that, by merely living in a town, or a state, or a country, one is "agreeing" to abide by whatever rules happen to be issued by the people who claim to have the right to rule that town, state or country. The idea is that if someone does not like the rules, he is free to leave the town, state or country altogether, and if he chooses not to leave, that constitutes giving his consent to be controlled by the rulers of that jurisdiction.

Though it is constantly parroted as gospel, the idea defies common sense. It makes no more sense than a carjacker stopping a driver on a Sunday and telling him,"By driving a car in this neighborhood on a Sunday, you are agreeing to give me your car."

On the contrary, it's totally relevant. Let's say you went to a town you didn't live in, and decided to block traffic at one of the main intersections. The government of the town would have every right to act on behalf of the people who live there, who elected that government, and remove whatever you were using to block the intersection, including yourself if need be. You don't have any right to interfere with their town, and they have the right to act to prevent such disruption on behalf of the people of that town.

By retaining your citizenship, you yourself consent to be governed, whether you like it or not.

You keep asserting this but you have NOT proven it. What part of "I DO NOT CONSENT" do you fail to understand.

Again, Larken Rose says it best:

Quote

There are two basic ways in which people can interact: by mutual agreement, or by one person using threats or violence to force his will upon another. The first can be labeled "consent" -- both sides willingly and voluntarily agreeing to what is to be done. The second can be labeled "governing" -- one person controlling another. Since these two -- consent and governing -- are opposites, the concept of "consent of the governed" is a contradiction. If there is mutual consent, it is not "government"; if there is governing, there is no consent. Some will claim that a majority, or the people as a whole, have given their consent to be ruled, even if many individuals have not. But such an argument turns the concept of consent on its head. No one, individually or as a group, can give consent for something to be done to someone else. That is simply not what "consent" means. It defies logic to say, "I give my consent for you to be robbed." Yet that is the basis of the cult of "democracy": the notion that a majority can give consent on behalf of a minority. That is not "consent of the governed"; it is forcible control of the governed, with the "consent" of a third party.

Even if someone were silly enough to actually tell someone else, "I agree to let you forcibly control me," the moment the controller must force the "controllee" to do something, there is obviously no longer "consent." Prior to that moment, there is no "governing" -- only voluntary cooperation. Expressing the concept more precisely exposes its inherent schizophrenia: "I agree to let you force things upon me, whether I agree to them or not."

The issue is not about my doing whatever I like. The issue is your failure to prove authority (of the State or government) exists.

Quote from: Habenae Est Dominatus

Please attend to the issue presented:

Since you have actually conceded that there is no birth rank, and that there can be no authority based upon this nonexistent birth rank, it follows that since you and every other member of this group have no authority over me, You, or any other member of this group, can not give consent for me to be governed. Only I can do that. And you can only consent for yourself to be governed.

Birth rank has never been the only way to gain authority over someone.

So you assert.

However, you have ignored the point: Neither You, or any other member of this group, can not give consent for me to be governed. Only I can do that. And you can only consent for yourself to be governed.

1. Only I can consent for me. Therefore you can not consent for me. 2. Only I can consent for me. Therefore none of the other individuals in the group can consent for me.3. In order for a group to collectively consent for me, Some member of the group must be one who can consent for me.

You are ASSERTING that a group of individuals can magically consent for me.

And I will keep posting this ad nauseum until you find a logical way to deny those three points.

If someone comes onto my property, for example, then I gain a limited authority over them, because I'm claiming that property as my own. Their right to act is curtailed by my right to act on behalf of my property, similar to how their right to swing their fist is curtailed by my physical body being in the way. If they act in a way which I don't like on my property, I have the right to demand that they stop. If they refuse, I can then act to stop them, the same as I can act to stop people from doing things that I don't like to my person. That's my authority over them.

That aside, at least you're acknowledging that individuals can consent to be governed. Do you also acknowledge that this covers their property? That is to say, that individuals can consent to having their property be governed?

"YOUR property" is as illusory as this "authority" thing, though, isn't it? What makes something your property? Let's say you're wearing a jacket. How is that jacket yours, as opposed to not yours? Is a jacket that is yours inherently distinguishable from one that is not, all other things being equal?

What establishes it as your property? Keep in mind that you cannot appeal to any legal framework to answer that question, as you also deny the existence of any legal authority whatsoever.

To be crystal clear: Your belief in having property is precisely as much a religion as others' belief in authority is a religion. Which is to say, not at all.

I am challenging the superstitious, religious belief in "authority". What I see is that some of the atheists are acting just like the theists when their beliefs in the deities are challenged with logic. Too bad those atheists can not see this any better than the theists can.

Except that you haven't actually established that it is a "superstitious, religious belief" to begin with. Indeed, you've been so busy trying to deny that anyone has any authority over you because they don't have a higher birth rank than you that you haven't actually demonstrated why authority is a "superstitious, religious belief". You've only presented assertions based on logic, when logic is only ever as valid as the premise used to support it. You certainly haven't provided anything in the way of actual evidence to support anything you've stated.

All you're doing is presenting your ideological belief that authority is a superstitious religion. You have presented no evidence to support this belief, and I do not think you actually have any such evidence, because if you had real evidence to support it, you would have presented it by now. Instead, you've blustered about how other people don't have authority over you, and about how you don't have to listen to or obey people elected by others because you didn't cast a vote for that person, that individuals are "equally sovereign" (based on a post that read like an ideological recruitment advertisement), and other things like that which really have nothing to do with the subject at hand.

So far, the only thing you've actually argued through this entire thread is that nobody has authority over you because you didn't consent to be governed. We're still on the very first thing you posted in this thread because your logic only acknowledged authority granted by birth rank and then attempted to claim that nobody had any authority over you, which does not follow from statements about authority not coming from birth rank.

How about you actually present some evidence that shows us that authority is actually a superstition or a religion, rather than simply asserting it over and over and over again?

Quote from: Habenae Est Dominatus

YOU can not consent to have MY property governed.

As Azdgari said, what makes it your property, if you have no legal structure to establish your ownership of it? What is to stop someone who decides that it's actually his property from hitting you over the head and taking it off of you? I would be very interested in seeing how you intend to keep someone who doesn't care about your high-minded libertarian rhetoric from robbing you (and maybe killing you in the process) if you were to somehow establish (in actual fact, not just with rhetoric) that the government did have no authority over you. Assuming, of course, that you actually have given the slightest bit of thought to it, instead of obsessing over "the government has no authority over me!"

I would be very interested in seeing how you intend to keep someone who doesn't care about your high-minded libertarian rhetoric from robbing you (and maybe killing you in the process) if you were to somehow establish (in actual fact, not just with rhetoric) that the government did have no authority over you. Assuming, of course, that you actually have given the slightest bit of thought to it, instead of obsessing over "the government has no authority over me!"

He'll recite wingardium leviosa"You have no authority over me!" in Latin, stopping the transgressor right in his/her tracks.

Logged

"When we landed on the moon, that was the point where god should have come up and said 'hello'. Because if you invent some creatures, put them on the blue one and they make it to the grey one, you f**king turn up and say 'well done'."

If no one has authority over me, then no one has a right to choose someone to have authority over me.

IMO, there are 2 ways to look at this debate. HEDs position is one from pure logic - in fact, he doesn't go far enough. As jaimehlers alluded too above - no one has any rights at all. Rights are a human construct, and that is where HED's argument fails. There are some rights of society that he values, that he expects.

But the second part of the argument is just that - rights ARE a human construct, and the rights we argue over and protect, and govern and take away and put back, are what society has come up with that somehow partly work.

Let's look at water rights. Everything from drinking to swimming to boating to fishing to generating electricity to irrigating, etc. If a landowner has surface water flowing over his property, he expects the person upstream from him to not foul or take that water, just as the person downstream from him expects the same.

Bugs Bunny and Blacque Jacque Shellacque.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKXOevtekJI]

I live in the Chesapeake bay system, where gobs of government money are trying to balance population and water quality.

Quote

The Chesapeake Bay is the largest of more than 100 estuaries in the United States. About half of the Bay’s water volume comes from salt water from the Atlantic Ocean. The other half drains into the Bay from its enormous 64,000-square-mile watershed. Because of this mix of fresh and salt water, the Bay’s salinity gradually increases as you move from north to south.Why are estuaries important?Estuaries are among the most productive environments on earth, creating more organic matter each year than similarly-sized forests and agricultural areas. Estuaries also provide diverse habitats for wildlife and aquatic life, protect our communities against flooding, reduce pollution to waterways, and support local economies through commercial and recreational activities.

Anything done in what is defined as a stream must have a permit. It drives landowners crazy, but in the next breath, they mention how, when they were kids, that stream was a mud hole, and now has fish and watercress, and flows clean. HED, we are going to give you authority over the 64,000 acre Chesapeake bay watershed. What are your plans?

unless your point is you think those two people have authority over me, you're wrong. They are there so I don't get banned because otherwise I'd say things to them that would; and with junebug: I have and surprised I didn't get banned for it. See, I can admit I agreed to the rules of the site and that in doing so it and those who enforce it: have authority over me--unlike you when you joined, idiot.

Bugs Bunny is enjoying his morning shower under a waterfall, singing "April Showers," when the water flow gets cut off. Bugs, thinking at first beavers are responsible, he climbs up the cliff to investigate. He meets Black Jacque Shellac, a ruthless lumberjack who wants to control the water supply. Bugs tricks the French-accented Jacque into removing a tiny rock in the dam to dislodge it. Jacque builds more dams, and prepares for what he thinks is the rabbit pulling more tricks; but of course Jacque and his dams get the worst end of a real shark and a barge full of dynamite. Certain Bugs will make more attempts to destroy his dam, the villainous Jacque fires his rifle at the waterfalls but winds up wrecking the rabbit's record player. Jacque builds "the perfect dam," one made of steel, but this time, the rabbit fights back with a series of his own. Using a cannon, Jacque proceeds to destroy them all, but his final attempt to destroy Grand Cooler Dam (thinking it's Bugs') ends with Jacque in the custody of the federal authorities

HEDs position is one from pure logic - in fact, he doesn't go far enough.

You might think so, but there's a reason that "Ignoring the counterevidence" is a fallacy.

Logged

An Omnipowerful God needed to sacrifice himself to himself (but only for a long weekend) in order to avert his own wrath against his own creations who he made in a manner knowing that they weren't going to live up to his standards.

The thing is, HED's idealism might work on a small scale. When you have a small group of people who all know each other reasonably well, they'll tend to get along without needing any kind of outside governance, and to deal with problems on their own too. But once you get much past the size of a tribe (a few dozen people), problems start to crop up; people start disagreeing with each other about problems and solutions for those problems, bandits who figure taking stuff from other people (or cheating them out of it) is easier than earning it themselves start coming out of the woodwork, there'll be more and more disputes over ownership and the like, and other things along those lines.

Look at the various frontier towns throughout U.S. history, for example, and how well they worked without a centralized authority of some kind keeping order in the town. Tombstone, Arizona is a good example of this (does the shootout at the OK Corral ring any bells?), and I'm quite sure there are others. Not to mention the organized gangs of bandits that caused plenty of problems just in the postbellum West, like Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Butch Cassidy, Sam Bass, and the hundreds if not thousands of others who made it their business to prey on others.

Aranarchism and Communism(and its mirror twin Libertarianism) will always fail when a group is large enough for anonymity to develop

Logged

An Omnipowerful God needed to sacrifice himself to himself (but only for a long weekend) in order to avert his own wrath against his own creations who he made in a manner knowing that they weren't going to live up to his standards.

The thing is, HED's idealism might work on a small scale. When you have a small group of people who all know each other reasonably well, they'll tend to get along without needing any kind of outside governance, and to deal with problems on their own too.

Sort of, but I would say, not exactly. They still have to have rules that limit individual liberties and govern their interactions so that they may function to the benefit of the whole group. You know these as morals, though this may be a new idea to HED. And while morals are flexible and change, they are not optional. They are enforced, ultimately, by the gun under the table, as HED would say. Because, ultimately, that is the only way to motivate people.

You've made that point. I actually appreciate that you have. In so doing, you have admitted that rank is not a path to authority. So now we get to examine those other paths that you think exist.

In short, you think that by eliminating birth rank as a source for authority, authority no longer exists? No wonder your logic has been so unconvincing. According to Max Weber (one of the three founders of the field of sociology), there are actually three primary kinds of authority; traditional authority, charismatic authority, and rational-legal authority. The first, traditional authority, is authority by birthright; note that it isn't the same thing as birth rank. Birth rank is a specific kind of birthright, and it's one that's not recognized here in the United States. However, it in no way says anything about other birthrights.

For example, those rights that you used as the basis for your argument (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) are birthrights; a human being has those rights just by being born (and because other people agree that a person has those rights). However, they are not natural rights; there is nothing physically stopping a human being from being killed or imprisoned, for example. What that means is that your idea of individual sovereignty is based on the traditional authority of birthrights. You are essentially claiming that because you were born, you have individual sovereignty. Yet there is no real basis for that argument. Since life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are not natural rights, that means they are only rights if other people recognize them as such. It thus follows that something like individual sovereignty is also only a right if other people accept it as such.

That's where your argument really fails. You are trying to establish individual sovereignty as a birthright, yet in order for this to happen, other people must accept it as such. If other people do not, then it is not a right no matter how much you claim otherwise. More specifically, it is only a right to the people who think it is. Because no individual has the power to make others accept that they are sovereign over their own life, it thus follows that there is no such thing as individual sovereignty. Even if a person convinced others to agree that they were sovereign over their own life, it would still be contingent on the consent of others, because rights depend on other people agreeing that they exist. Therefore, an individual cannot be truly sovereign over their own life, and the concept of individual sovereignty contradicts itself, where other rights do not.

For example, even though the right to life is also contingent on the consent of others, it does not depend on an individual's assertion that they have the right to live. It only depends on others agreeing that an individual has the right to live, and there is no contradiction.

In short, HED's task is to show that the concept of individual sovereignty does not contradict itself (since basing a logical argument on a concept which is logically contradictory is unlikely to succeed). There is no real point to further discussion about his assertions that others do not have authority over him when he has not shown that his authority to declare this comes from anything but the sufferance or agreement of others.

How about I not, and say I did?unless your point is you think those two people have authority over me, you're wrong. They are there so I don't get banned because otherwise I'd say things to them that would; and with junebug: I have and surprised I didn't get banned for it. See, I can admit I agreed to the rules of the site and that in doing so it and those who enforce it: have authority over me--unlike you when you joined, idiot.

-Nam

The guy who can't figure out what I just communicated to him calls me an idiot. This is precious, just precious.

Is this you placing me on ignore or what? Because when I click that link I see my ignore list.

-Nam

Emphasis mine.

So let me address it by the numbers.1. You assert that my points and I are "irrelevant".2. If you find my points and myself "irrelevant" then you simply don't have to read them.3. In order to not read them, all you have to do is block me.4. I gave YOU the exact link to take you where you need to go on YOUR profile page to block me.5. And you call me "idiot".

Bwa ha ha.

OH, and by the way... nobody but you can see your ignore list if they click that link... Only you can. So you just ASS U ME d something there you know nothing about.

"YOUR property" is as illusory as this "authority" thing, though, isn't it? What makes something your property? Let's say you're wearing a jacket. How is that jacket yours, as opposed to not yours? Is a jacket that is yours inherently distinguishable from one that is not, all other things being equal?

What establishes it as your property? Keep in mind that you cannot appeal to any legal framework to answer that question, as you also deny the existence of any legal authority whatsoever.

To be crystal clear: Your belief in having property is precisely as much a religion as others' belief in authority is a religion. Which is to say, not at all.

Instead of just asserting things like this, perhaps you should explain how his reply was a red herring and an appeal to consequences. Think of it this way; what seems obvious to you can be totally unclear to other people. I have myself had a number of situations on this site where someone misunderstood me or I misunderstood them based on things that seemed obvious but weren't. If you explain the reasoning behind it, it eliminates at least one possible source for misunderstanding.